Allen Iverson’s Three Quarter Million Dollar Sports Card Sale

1997 was one of the best NBA draft classes of all time, featuring legends like Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen, and the iconic Allen Iverson. AI was never an afterthought in that draft class, but he had never had a card sell for this much—until now. One of his cards sold for $701,500 over the weekend through Heritage Auctions.
🚨 RECORD SALE 🚨 Featuring a 1997 Skybox E-X 2001 Allen Iverson Essential Credentials Now /3, graded PSA 5 (POP 1, none higher); sold for $701,500 via auction with Heritage Auctions on January 31st!
— Cardhedger (@cardhedger) February 2, 2025
This has become the highest Allen Iverson card ever sold at auction, and also a… pic.twitter.com/hwwOB3CnVA
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Topps and Topps Chrome have commanded high prices for many rookies over the past few years, but when it comes to 90s cards, inserts often end up being the most valuable. What makes this sale so historic is that Iverson has only had one card sell for over six figures before— a 2007-08 UD "Exquisite Collection" card that also featured Kobe Bryant and Stephon Marbury.
His highest sale for a card featuring only him was a 2016-17 Panini National Treasures "Logoman Autographs", which sold for $79,200.
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Between that sale and this record-breaking one, two 1996-97 SkyBox E-X 2000 hobby cases from his and Kobe’s rookie year sold for $74,400 in 2022 and $80,520 in 2024. The draft class having Kobe in it did have a lot to do with these box sales but AI and Ray Allen help drive up the price.
According to Heritage Auctions, the $701,500 sale of the SkyBox Essential Credentials Now insert is “the 11th highest public sale of a sports card produced in the 1990s.” This card was part of their Winter Sports Card event, which totaled over $10 million in sales.
This card is an insert from the 1997-98 SkyBox E-X2001 product. As Cardboard Connection describes, “Card number one (Grant Hill) is numbered 1/1, card number two (Kevin Garnett) is numbered to 2, and so on, up to card number 80.”
That means since the Iverson card is number 3 on the checklist, only three of these cards exist in the product. Although this particular card is only a PSA 5, its extreme rarity makes it one of the most desirable Iverson cards in existence.